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Genetically Modified Organisms : Are Good For Us Or Not?

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A GMO is a genetically modified organism. GMOs are living organisms that have been changed and modified in laboratories through genetic engineering. Over the years, scientists, researchers, breeders, and farmers have been working to change and modify plants to better fit human needs. 10,000 years ago, humans began crop domestication using selective breeding and in the 1700s, scientists and farmers began cross-breeding plants within a species. Though the 1940s and 1950s, researchers looked for other ways to introduce genetic variation into the gene pool of plants. In the 1980s researchers created a more controllable way to create plants with more desirable traits resulting in the first GMOs being introduced to the market place in the 1990s. No one is quite sure if GMOs are good for us or not, but there are many people who have very strong opinions on this topic. These opinions are most often based on ideas about the cause and effect of GMO’s, in other words, GMO’s causing either positive or negative effects. Here are a few reasons why people believe GMOs are good and should be used. Some proponents of GMO’s state that testing of GMO’s shows that they do not cause negative effects. Inorder for products with GMOs to be allowed on the shelves in stores, they are repeatedly tested before they can be sold. This process can take as much as seven to ten years, and GMOs are one of the most tested products in history. Other proponents of GMO’s state that there are very

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